Azusa Educators Association members rallied Tuesday at a busy intersection, then went to the Azusa School Board meeting at Paramount Elementary School to present their no confidence vote against three administrators including Superintendent Linda Kaminski.
Photo by Julia Wick, contributing photographer

Teachers in Azusa Unified say they have no confidence in district leadership and wore black “Azusa Educators Association” T-shirts and chanted “no confidence” at a Tuesday school board meeting to drive home their point of view.

More than 100 members of Azusa Educators Association, the local teachers’ union, presented their official vote of “no confidence” in three top district officials, including Superintendent Linda Kaminski at the meeting, which took place on the campus of Paramount Elementary School.

They cited poor financial planning, which the union says has led to teacher layoffs, as well as a lack of oversight over facilities and management. Azusa Unified serves approximately 8,300 students, according to the district’s website.

Despite the teachers’ complaints, school board President Helen Jaramillo on Tuesday expressed support for Kaminski.

And Kaminski thanked the teachers for expressing their feelings, saying said she’d set aside time to meet with them.

Board member Paul Naccachian said he found the situation troubling, and the district should look into why the teachers are so unhappy.

Prior to the meeting, dozens of teachers rallied at the busy intersection of Paramount Street and Azusa Avenue during rush hour, hoping to catch the eyes of commuters making their way home.

“We’re here to raise awareness in the city before we go over to the board meeting,” said Brodie O’Brien, a studio art and English teacher at Gladstone High School.

O’Brien, who has been with the district for 15 years, said that discontent among the teachers has been building for some time.

“Our membership has been disillusioned and disenfranchised,” he said. “Too many things have gone wrong.”

Kaminski has been superintendent of Azusa Unified since 2012. She came to the district from a role as assistant superintendent at Upland Unified and was celebrated just a few months ago, when the the Los Angeles County Office of Education amed her “L.A County Superintendent of the Year.” She was the inaugural honoree for the newly created award.

“When she came in, she really promoted a policy of programs over people. And decisions were made for the advancement of programs at the expense of employees,” Azusa Educators Association President and 28-year Azusa Unified teacher Meg Savella said. “We do not want to follow someone who does not value us, and who we in turn don’t respect for the decisions that she’s making.”

Several teachers spoke of what they saw as poor financial planning by Kaminski.

“At the end of 2016, there was a retirement incentive and 33 teachers retired,” Savella said, explaining that the district has been faced with declining enrollment. “And instead of utilizing that opportunity, they just filled all those positions and remain overstaffed,” resulting in layoffs.

Savella said that nine teachers are expected to be laid off by the end of the 2017-2018 school year.

“A vote of no confidence, other than going on strike, is probably one of the worst things you can do as an organization,” said Savella, who teaches third grade at Victor F. Hodge Elementary School. “You’re at your last straw.”

Some 91 percent of Azusa’s 467 teachers participated in the “no confidence” vote in Kaminski. Of those, 96 percent voted no confidence.

“No confidence” votes were also issued for Assistant Superintendent Ruben Rubalcaba, who acts as the district’s human resources director; and Assistant Superintendent Marc Bommarito, who serves as the district’s business manager.

While several teachers said they personally “liked” Bommarito, they charged that, as a former school counselor and principal, he is under-qualified for responsibilities, including managing the district’s budget.

“He’s never been a chief business officer; he doesn’t have a degree in accounting; he doesn’t have business services experience. He just got nominated into the spot,” Savella said. “Nice guy, but he’s just not qualified.”

Bommarito is also tasked with overseeing the district’s embattled Maintenance, Operations and Transportation Department.

In July 2017, the L.A. County Office of Education requested an audit after the county received documentation of “possible fraud, misappropriation of funds or other illegal practices” in the MOT department. This followed a March 2017 Azusa Police Department investigation into alleged equipment theft by a district employee.

Local police and the district ultimately “found no conclusive evidence that the employee participated in any illegal practices,” according to the audit.

The county audit, which was presented in January, found insufficient evidence to indicate that fraud or misappropriation of district funds, or other illegal activities, may have occurred. However, the audit also said that many internal control elements in the district were “weak or lacking.”

According to the audit, the lack of monitoring and control “has led to an environment with considerable risk for fraud, misappropriation of funds and misuse of district assets in the management and oversight of the district’s MOT department.”

The teachers’ union was not expecting the school board to take any immediate action during the heated meeting Tuesday, although several school board members did address the concerns.

“It is troubling to see what I see tonight. It is something that tells me that something is not working,” board member Paul Naccachian said, adding the board should look into why so many individuals who work for the district are unhappy.

For Jaramillo’s part, “I stand by Dr. Kaminski.” The superintendent came into an administration where a lot of changes needed to be made, she said. “While a lot of people didn’t see that, I was privy to a lot of that information. It was difficult.”

But she acknowledged,“I heard you loud and clear, I know that we have problems.”

Kaminski also briefly addressed the crowd, saying she’d “like to thank the teachers who came out to complain about me.”

“I appreciate hearing from you and I really do want to hear more,” Kaminski said, adding that she would be instituting drop-in hours on Friday afternoons for any teachers who wanted to stop by and speak with her after work.

Julia Wick is a Los Angeles-based freelance journalist who covers City Hall, immigration and LA culture, among other things. Until November 2017, she was editor-in-chief at LAist. Before that, she was a senior editor at Longreads and a KIA fellow at the Los Angeles Urban League. She was born and raised in Los Angeles and studied urban planning at USC. She is a board member of the Los Angeles chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Join the Conversation

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. Although we do not pre-screen comments, we reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.

If you see comments that you find offensive, please use the “Flag as Inappropriate” feature by hovering over the right side of the post, and pulling down on the arrow that appears. Or, contact our editors by emailing moderator@scng.com.